FIFA World Cup sees 13x rise in online hate comments
What's the story
The ongoing FIFA World Cup has witnessed a shocking surge in online hate comments, with a staggering 89,000 abusive posts detected during the group stage. This is a massive 13 times increase compared to the previous edition held in Qatar. The data was revealed by FIFA's Social Media Protection Service (SMPS), which analyzed over six million posts and comments for offensive content.
Racial content
Racially motivated posts
Of the total abusive posts detected, 11% were found to be racially motivated. This marks a 3% increase from the group stage in Qatar. FIFA has described this as a "significant increase in the objectively worst, most offensive material" on social media platforms. "Available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials participating at Fifa tournaments, SMPS protects them and their followers from experiencing discriminatory and offensive content," FIFA said in a statement.
Moderation process
SMPS flagged 225,000 posts for human review
The SMPS uses a combination of technology and human moderation to identify, filter, and block racist or threatening messages. It also protects players' followers from exposure to abusive content. Out of the 225,000 posts flagged for human review, moderators verified 89,000 as abusive and took action against them. About 1,000 accounts were escalated for further investigation.
Tournament impact
Increased volume of content due to expanded tournament format
The expanded tournament format with 48 teams instead of 32 in Qatar has also contributed to the increased volume of content analyzed by FIFA. The SMPS's automated moderation tools also hid around 181,000 hateful comments from team accounts during this period. Over two million comments were moderated during the group stage, including spam and content from bots or fake accounts - a fourfold increase from 2022.
Legal action
Evidence collected for law enforcement
FIFA has revealed that as part of the evolution of SMPS, the service also collates evidence for law enforcement. "Over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them," FIFA said in its statement. The Netherlands players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville were among those targeted with racist abuse online after missing penalties in a shootout defeat to Morocco in the last 32.